Ghosts
by PikaCheeka
Summary: Tobirama reflects on the ambiguously parasitic relationship between Madara and his brother in various stages of life after VotE as he comes to realize that sometimes, the dead are not as dead as they first appear. He is haunted by ghosts. Minor HashiMada/MadaHashi, even more minor TobiMito. T for violence, character death, a sexual reference, language, angst.


A/N – While this is a Tobirama-centric fic, it is largely about the ambiguously parasitic relationship between Hashirama and Madara and how it affected him. The entire story takes place after VotE, so Madara is not an active character, though he is a passive one. It is littered with headcanons of mine that I have come up with over the years, as it all fits into my larger fic that I will probably never get around to writing (I have been telling myself to start it for four years). I had fun writing this one, so I hope you enjoy!

**Ghosts**

By PikaCheeka

"_I am obsessed by the presence of ghosts that I never can get rid of."_

- Henrick Ibsen, _Ghosts_

The First Shade

He only waited long enough to feel his brother's life flicker before transferring himself to the battlefield. It had been a new jutsu, one he had never tried before. Normally he'd have never dared test it on his own brother; that's what prisoners, traitors, and deserters were for. That's what Uchiha were for. But he hadn't had time, and in the end he used it on Hashirama without him even knowing it had happened. Tobirama could follow him then, temporarily tied to his life force, aware of every breath he took, every wound he received, and he knew immediately when his brother fell.

Unfortunately, as he quickly learned, such a jutsu was flawed, untested, and he cursed softly to himself. His brother was close, but not close enough, and he was forced to traipse through the rubble for nearly an hour, afraid to use his suiton to clear a path lest he injure him. He could not feel Madara, but he suspected him dead. Madara would not leave his brother alive, therefore only one of them could remain. At least, that was not a possibility Tobirama allowed himself to consider, because Madara couldn't possibly care for Hashirama.

When he found Hashirama, he picked him up carefully, uncomfortably aware of how the wounds on his shoulder and arm had not healed despite his chakra, how his armor was torn and his beloved sword missing. His brother had always been heavier than him, but in that moment he felt eerily light, as if his ribcage had been swept clean and he were empty inside.

The Second Shade

There was no body. Not even remains, and only a faint smear of dried blood that had not washed away in the rain.

He stood a long moment, staring down at it, unsure of what to feel. For some reason, he was not surprised. This was how it had always been. Madara nothing but a shadow, a paradoxical flicker in the dark. And for that long moment, he was not even concerned. Maybe Madara had never existed at all, had been nothing but a manifestation of all the hatred, anxiety, and bloodlust the clans had felt towards one another over the centuries, nothing but a ghost. How easy things would be then, to finally erase that which was now not even real. That was until he saw it, the remnants of a mokuton clone of his brother still clinging to the rock, and the spark of glass hanging off of one of the branches.

It was the necklace his brother had given to Madara. The only present Madara had accepted, at least that Tobirama was aware of. That was when the full weight of the situation descended upon him. Something abandoned so deliberately required an agency aware of what it represented. He curled his fingers around it tightly and wondered.

The Third Shade

The younger brother said nothing. He only slowly moved his hand forward, the necklace dangling between his fingers.

He heard the anguished sound from his brother and despised him for being so weak. Despised Madara for making him so. Despised himself for knowing that he could never speak the truth, knowing that he could never say the words that might save his brother, or destroy him forever. His brother might not be a murderer, but Madara might have scornfully abandoned the only memento he would ever have of him.

"I thought you might want it back," he said finally.

Hashirama was slow to take it, and his hand shook when he did. "What did you do with the body?"

"I took care of it." A reasonable enough answer, and hopefully one that his brother would accept.

Hashirama studied him, a light appearing in his eyes for the briefest of moments, a light Tobirama had not seen since Madara had abandoned the village, and then it was gone. Replaced by a critical stare, and suddenly Tobirama felt nervous. But eventually his brother sighed, turned away, and he felt a rush of relief. Whatever Hashirama felt or suspected, he would never question.

The Fourth Shade

Hashirama hid the necklace away for years.

Tobirama caught him with it once, when he came home on a cold day in December to find his brother asleep in his living room. As they grew older, they grew apart, as if that fight in the valley had shattered everything Hashirama had once been and his brother was now a thing of the past, on the other side of a wall he had not the heart to climb. But here he was, in his home, sleeping as if the last fifteen years had not happened.

The younger Senju knelt down beside him, ready to wake him up, to slap him even, as he used to, and pretend that indeed those years had never passed. It was then that he saw the streaks on his face that could only have been left by tears, and the hand curled under his chin with a chain dangling from it.

He suddenly felt as he had that day so long ago when he had stumbled upon his brother and Madara in one of their moments of intimacy. He had long known that something was between them, but to see it so suddenly, to see their passion laid bare before him, repulsed him. This was something nearly as profane, though he could not quite understand why. He jerked back, retreating to the door before clearing his throat and calling his brother's name in an irritated fashion, as if he had seen nothing.

Hashirama groaned, rolled over, yawned, stretched, all before sitting up and smiling vaguely, all in the same way he had always woken up since they were children. "Sorry. I came by to visit but you were out so I made myself at home."

"I noticed," but he smiled despite himself. He missed his brother, and was grateful for this moment, whatever the occasion, for his visit. "Want anything to eat? Drink?"

"Always." The older Senju took the initiative, standing and walking into his kitchen as if it were his own home, firing up the kettle, perusing the jars of pickles and crackers before turning to the rice barrel. Clearly he had already examined his food options while his brother was out. Tobirama threw up his arms and pushed him out of the way without thinking, as if he were not forty-nine but fifteen again.

"I'll do this. Go sit down before you wreck everything." But he was glad. His brother was acting like he had before the valley. He knew it would not last, knew that he had come for a reason, but this was more than he had ever expected.

The feeling indeed did not last, as after nearly an hour of talk about the village, his family, and Tobirama's lack thereof, Hashirama turned to what he had come for. "I still think of him." As he said it, he slowly withdrew the necklace from his obi.

"I know," his brother sighed. Inevitably. It always returned to him.

"Do you believe in ghosts?"

"No." Tobirama said it so quickly that he himself realized how foolish he sounded.

But Hashirama only raised an eyebrow, smiled faintly. "I dream of him. He comes to me. Every night he comes. He looks the same as when he died except…he feels older. Sadder. Sometimes he speaks to me, and I can't understand his words."

"He's dead, Hashirama. He only haunts you because you let him."

His next words were so soft that Tobirama pretended he hadn't heard them, but after his brother had left, he shattered their bowls in fury. " You're wrong. He is. He is. He is."

The Fifth Shade

He was unable to resist his look of disgust when he saw Tsunade, his little grand-niece, or perhaps granddaughter. He would never know, and he would never ask. She was four now, old enough to have toddle after his brother half the day and scream for attention the other half. Tobirama had always found her a little annoying, but this was too much. "Why is she wearing that?"

"Wearing what?" Hashirama returned, innocently enough, but the guilt clear on his face.

"That thing around her neck. You're tainting her."

"Don't be a fool. She found it and thought it pretty, so I let her have it."

"You should have thrown it away. What does your wife think of this?" His throat tightened when he said it. He had always pitied her.

"She always knew about us. I never kept anything from her and -"

"And you think it's okay to give to her granddaughter the very same thing you gave to that abomination you wasted so many years fucking and obsessing over? You take it back when he is dead and just pass it on to someone else you claim to care about it? Is that it?" His own words surprised and disgusted him but he hardly cared. "Does she remind you of him in the way she demands your attention? In how you favor her and ignore everyone else around you?"

"Tobirama!" But the look in his eyes did not meet the anger in his voice. "What is the matter with you? How dare you compare her to him. Sometimes you disgust me."

He brushed the words aside, so easy to after so many years of hurt. "I know that you love her but you spoil her, Hashirama. You are lured in too easily by others. She may be your granddaughter," the word bit him like ice, "but you can not let her grow up thinking she can take and take and take. The last time you did that to someone, he nearly destroyed you."

"He did."

"No, he didn't. Don't talk like that."

"I'm…"

"I'm sorry." Tobirama cut him off. He despised apologizing, but the thought of his brother doing it at this moment terrified him. Almost as much as what he may have truly intended to say did.

The Sixth Shade

The second time Tobirama left the village to seek out his brother after a battle that he felt uncomfortable with, he knew it was over. He hadn't even felt that life flicker, but he knew his jutsu had failed him. He knew, with a strange certainty, that his brother was finally dead. They were only Kumo nin, nobody special, but he had known that this was the end of things when his brother left the village that morning, and somehow, somewhere, he believed Hashirama knew that as well.

He had passed through the day in a haze, knowing that going after him was pointless, that death was death and it came to everyone. Unless you were someone who didn't truly exist to begin with. The detachment unnerved him; he felt he should be angry, scared, sorrowful, that his brother would die that day, but instead he felt nothing.

Deep in the forests outside of Konoha, he found the Kumo nin before he found Hashirama, and that was when the unease returned to him. So familiar in its coldness now. They were all dead, killed in hideous ways, several torn entirely in half. As vicious as Hashirama could be on the battlefield, he did not kill this way. There was no chakra signature lingering. Whoever had cleaned up, had done well, but Tobirama felt it pointless in the end. Everything was, he reflected when he saw his brother.

Hashirama had dragged himself to the center of a copse, a small opening in the dense undergrowth with the last rays of sunlight filtering through the trees. It would have been poignant, even beautiful, were he not dead. He lay on his back, hands folded over his chest, hair splayed out around him, and his eyes closed. Besides him lay a sword, eerily clean amidst the bloodstained grass. It was a thin blade, of the sort Hashirama carried when he was younger, and Tobirama found himself hoping against everything that he had merely grabbed it from one of his enemies before dying. Because it looked all too familiar, but ghosts did not exist.

When he fell to his knees by his brother's head, he strokes his hair a moment, unable to look him in the face. So this was death, finally come down upon the one man he had ever honored. The full magnitude of it was descending, slowly, painfully, as if his eyelids were being torn off and he was forced to accept what he had fooled himself into believing he had already accepted. Never again would Hashirama feel pain. He had been dying for decades, and now finally it was over. But with his passing, something went out of his brother forever. Had he driven him to this? To seek death at every turn, to have such a complete disregard for his own life? After the battle at the valley, so many years ago now, Hashirama had changed. Something in him had died that day, and all those years Tobirama had guarded the secret that could have, perhaps, saved him.

When he finally raised his eyes to his brother's face, he was struck by how peaceful he looked. Did one always look as such, when they were in love with death? That was when he noticed the blood.

Hashirama's throat had been slit, so neatly and carefully that he clearly had not resisted at all. The front of his armor had a deep vertical gash through it, the top of his shirts beneath cut open and pulled back. And just below his collarbone were three more deep cuts, one perhaps half the length of his thumb and on either side, a smaller one.

He felt the pain go out of him then, felt no rage despite knowing what ghosts had passed there, what ghosts may have taken his brother from him forever, but instead a relief mingled, again, with that unease. His lack of anger was incomprehensible to him, but he feared delving too deeply into why that was. Was he not betraying his brother all over again? The one thing he had sworn to destroy, to all the ends of the earth, had finally taken the one person he cared for. The loss of Madara had finally consumed Hashirama forever. Death had found him. Tobirama had denied his own brother peace all those years, and only in dying was Hashirama able to find it again.

Tobirama withdrew his hands. He did not touch the body again until the next dawn, as if daring the ghosts to come for him, as well.

He buried him with the sword, as if to appease the past, to beg it to render unto him what was his.

The Final Shade

As the years passed, the hatred returned. Slowly at first, snatches in the night, but eventually it came back in all its roiling, vitriolic force. It was not that the past had murdered his brother, no; it was that the past did not deem him worthy to take as well. As the winters fell away and the little girl wearing the necklace Tobirama so despised grew, he felt mocked, belittled. Despite everything he had done, he was nothing in the end. No ghost would come for him, and yet it haunted him.

Every day, it haunted him, just as it had haunted his brother before his death. Every day, he pulled out the vial of blood chipped from the rock in the valley. And every day, he considered trying it. But he never did, because he feared too much what might happen. Or, as he was all too aware, what might not happen.

Some ghosts may not be summoned from the other realm. This realm, too, has its shadows, and some people are ghosts long before death finds them.


End file.
